Marc Roth cuts cardboard with a laser at the TechShop in S.F. He used his $49 assistance check for a membership and within 16 months opened SF Laser. Now he wants to start a Learning Shelter program to help homeless people reap the same benefits. less

Marc Roth cuts cardboard with a laser at the TechShop in S.F. He used his $49 assistance check for a membership and within 16 months opened SF Laser. Now he wants to start a Learning Shelter program to help ... more

Marc Roth uses a laser to cut the Learning Shelter logo, Tuesday February 18, 2014, at the TechShop in San Francisco, Calif. Roth, who was living in a homeless shelter when he spotted a flyer in the trash for TechShop. He used his last $50 on a membership and after 6-months in teaching classes himself. March 15th he is launching a program Learning Shelter to help homeless people with leaning skills. less

Marc Roth uses a laser to cut the Learning Shelter logo, Tuesday February 18, 2014, at the TechShop in San Francisco, Calif. Roth, who was living in a homeless shelter when he spotted a flyer in the trash for ... more

One winter night, Marc Roth unearthed a flyer from the trash at Hospitality House, a Tenderloin shelter where he had landed after a string of bad luck. The flyer described TechShop, San Francisco's DIY workshop for inventors and tinkerers.

"This is a really great place; what do I have to do to get in there?" he thought.

Within a couple of days, Roth used his general assistance check for a one-month $49 TechShop membership. Soon he was spending all day, every day playing with a panoply of industrial tools, from 3-D printers to water jet cutters.

Within six months, Roth was supporting himself as a TechShop instructor and part-time helper for other members. Within 16 months, he had started SF Laser, making $75 an hour for production laser cutting and etching.

Now, two years later, Roth, 39, wants to help other homeless people reap similar benefits.

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"I can't pay back some of the help I've gotten, but I can help others," he said.

So he's started an Indiegogo campaign to raise $60,000 to open the Learning Shelter, a program to teach hands-on industrial-hardware skills to homeless individuals, while also providing housing and volunteer mentors.

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Initially will help 4

The program initially will help just four people, who will get TechShop instruction and free housing for 90 days. But eventually Roth hopes to help a couple of hundred at a time in live-work facilities built inside shipping containers.

Roth, an affable man who resembles a chubbier Craig Newmark, possesses the entrepreneur's gift for rattling off assorted brainstorms. He knows he can't help everyone in shelters, such as those struggling with mental illness or addiction.

"This isn't about finding the most down-and-out homeless people to try to turn into miracle stories," Roth said. "I'm talking about finding people like me and giving them a runway to success and some education and mentorship. There were some characters you wouldn't want anything to do with in the shelter, but I was surprised to find a lot of pretty level-headed people."

TechShop already boasts a history of training people who need help, such as offering free classes to military veterans, said Jim Newton, who founded the business eight years ago.

"It makes me feel good to know TechShop has made such an impact on people's lives," he said about Roth and the Learning Shelter. "We see members all the time with good ideas who then learn sell-able skills here. It's a good way to help people become employed."

Bad breaks

A series of bad breaks pushed Roth onto the streets.

After his IT consulting work dried up, he moved to the Bay Area from Las Vegas in 2011, hoping to find a better job market. The plan was for his ex-wife and two children to follow soon. Roth worked temporarily at a pizza shop, but developed painful nerve damage similar to sciatica and accumulated piles of medical bills.

Then someone broke Roth's car windows and stole his tools. He checked into a homeless shelter and signed up for general assistance at the same time he discovered TechShop.

Roth stayed in the shelter for several months while working around the clock at the TechShop.

"He just wouldn't quit, showing up every day," said David Lang, another TechShop member who likewise was struggling and living in his car. "Both of us didn't have anywhere else to go."

Thanks to his TechShop skills and connections, and a successful Kickstarter campaign, Lang started a business called OpenROV (for open-source remotely operated underwater vehicles), which sells $850 kits to make robot submarines. He now employs five people out of an office in Berkeley.

"I knew the feeling of wanting to rebuild your life and not having the skills and then all of a sudden the tools are accessible," Lang said. "Marc and I both recognize that there is a big opportunity to use this maker movement and momentum to help other people get back on their feet."

New friends help out

The TechShop yielded other new friends, including one who helped Roth move into a house for startup founders and another who lent him a $12,500 laser cutter, a piece of equipment that grew into SF Laser, based at TechShop.

The business enabled Roth to earn a decent living and move his two children and ex-wife to San Francisco last June.

"Being back together is phenomenal," he said.

Now Roth wants to pay it forward with the Learning Shelter. Roth hasn't raised much of the $60,000 he needs and still does not know where the first four participants will live.

But supporters say they have faith.

"Mark is someone hacking and hustling his way to a new solution," said Bettina Warburg, public foresight strategist at the Institute for the Future, a Palo Alto organization that's temporarily providing nonprofit status to the Learning Shelter so he can accept tax-deductible donations. "He went from learning skills at TechShop as a maker to developing a whole practice area as he prototypes how to grow economic and personal opportunities for a vulnerable population."